White Night, Blue Interlude
by auntarctica
Summary: Blane returns to the one he always chose. Steff/Blane
1. Chapter 1

Blane McDonough stood before the high white door he'd sworn never to darken again, and hated himself.

He knew this doorstep well, from the neoclassical portico to the ornate door handle. He knew this house, these grounds. _Probably better than you know yourself._ The thought came with a twist of bitter irony, and he held onto it stubbornly, like a sharp object, letting it really dig into the tender loam of his mind.

Tonight, he'd gotten in his BMW coupe and drove, torturing himself with the mix tape Andie had made him back in June. "It has a slow, mopey, romantic side, and a fun, funky side," she'd said, when she handed it to him. "So you can choose, depending on your mood." Right then his mood was more underground than Andie's taste in music, so it wasn't hard to choose. He'd cruised the wide streets on the right side of the tracks, passing mansions, eyes on the road and the volume on high. He cycled through The Cure, The Smiths and Tears for Fears, steeping in his feelings. He felt a lump form in his throat at The Motels' _Suddenly Last Summer_. When he hit Split Enz' _I Hope I Never_ , he viciously rewound it and played it again. And again. And again.

 _Something inside me says this is always how it was supposed to end._

 _Lighten up, Blane. You act like life is a permanent condition._ It wasn't his own voice he heard in his head this time, but it was one he always listened to, for better or worse. For once, he'd eased up his perfectionist death-grip on his psyche and let his bruised mind wander—and his traitorous subconscious had led him here, to a familiar place in a world he belonged where he felt like an angry, self-loathing stranger.

He took a deep breath as he braced a hand against the door. He closed his eyes, steadying his nerves; steeling them. The night air was rarified here, on their side of town; in ways he knew well but could never quite describe—balmy and sweet at the end of August, with the freshness that rose from the long green lawns, and a cool under-breeze that hinted coyly at the sport and splendor of an upper-crust Fall, with promises of cold, bracing air and bright, burning leaves.

Just the perfect evening of another terrible day in the worst week of his life. He rang the bell.

The doorbell didn't buzz, like it did at Andie's house. Instead it launched into a complicated symphony of chimes, each one blooming and overlapping the next. That was all right. Blane was buzzed enough for both of them. He waited, hands in his pockets, fuming somewhere under the unstructured neutrality of his Oxford blazer, trying to school his expression to something less petulant on the off-chance McKee's parents were actually home and answering their own door.

After a leisurely moment or two, the door opened, and he was face to face with McKee, without even having to ask for the pleasure.

He looked the same as ever, with his crisp white shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Steff looked at him for a long time, with his heavy-lidded gaze. Took him in, from collar to Topsiders. "Why are you here, Blane?"

"Because you used to be my best friend, and I had nowhere else to go." Blane could feel the rush of outrage overtake him, everything he'd so lovingly cultivated in the past week of wallowing. At least now he could aim it at someone deserving. "You'll be happy to know Andie and I are quits."

"Already over, is it? Thought you'd at least last the summer. I won't say I told you so."

"Go for it," Blane said, spreading his arms. "I came here so you could take your shot, since life already has."

"Don't be so dramatic. You're eighteen and your family has more money than God. Are you coming in? Because I really don't have all fucking night to stand here at the door and play Horatio to your self-pitying soliloquy. I need another Scotch for that."

He turned and strolled back into the cavernous foyer of the French Provincial chateau, leaving the door open. Blane followed a moment later, still on the warpath. "After all that—all that bullshit you put me through—you really have nothing to say? No gloating, no laughing in my face?"

"Why would I do that?" At the top of the stairs, Steff turned to look at him. "Did you think I actually give a shit?" The words carried a casually cutting indifference, but no particular venom.

Blane followed him down the upstairs hall, like a vengeful shadow. "You sure acted like you gave a shit, when you tried to mess up what we had. When you tried to keep me away from her, when you looked down on her and shit on her for being…"

Steff paused at the threshold of his palatial bedroom. "For being what?" he said, as he went inside, and Blane followed him, the way he always had.

"Different. Of a different class, yeah. But also just…" Blane pushed a hand through the front of his hair, sinking miserably down in the corner bergère. "Different."

Steff eyed him for a moment with something like pity, which surprised him, shadowed by a just hint of contempt. That last, at least, was familiar. "She's not that different, McDonough."

"You're just jealous." He bit out the words, glaring at Steff, feeling the smoldering resentment burn him like a held coal.

"If you say so." Steff crossed to the bedside table and picked up a tawny bottle of Talisker, refreshing his rocks glass.

The lights were low in Steff's room, which was a departure from the rest of the house; sleek modernism colliding with old-world structure and rococo elements in a way that Blane still had to admit was pleasing. He'd spent more hours in this room than his own. It was a far cry from the guest room Andie had seen, where Steff and Benny had lolled indecently and Benny had been blowsy and tipsy and even crueler than usual. Something was playing on the television across from the vast, black satin-dressed bed; a movie where a furtive man watched as a woman moved in semi-silhouette, touching herself to an erotic and ethereal electronic song, where a female voice sensually intoned high arpeggios on a single vowel.

It lent a strange, surreal aura to the scene, and Blane found himself responding to the evocative ambience, gazing forward, his senses blurring and warming. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if he'd had too many beers or nowhere near enough.

Steff followed his gaze to the screen. " _Body Double_ ," he said. "De Palma. It's a good flick, if you didn't catch it in the theatres. Score's by Pino Donaggio," he added, as if that should mean something to Blane. "This one's called 'Telescope'."

He reached over and pushed "pause" on the remote control. The woman stilled mid self-caress, the stilled image of her seductive silhouette distorted and striped with jittery static. "But you were saying something, weren't you? About how jealous I was."

"Andie _is_ different," muttered Blane, eventually. "She was special."

"All right. Then why aren't you with her now?"

"Because shit doesn't always work out the way you want."

"Tell me about it."

"Oh, I intend to."

"Passive-aggressive, as usual. You're so goddamn weak-minded, Blane. So easily swayed. Even now, I could push you over with a fucking finger. Always could." Steff turned abruptly, running his hand back through his lush mane of blondish hair. "What is with you, anyhow? Are you really that alienated over this? Christ. You're worse than me."

"I very much doubt that," Blane said, acidly.

"Well, believe it, friend," said Steff, flatly. "There you sit, head to foot, in J. Crew, beige and blue. Blane's pretty close to bland. Just one letter off."

"What the hell does that mean?" He wondered if he'd come here to take Steff's casual abuse, specifically and masochistically, just to compound his misery so he could really wallow in it.

Steff's expression was mild. "Your problem is you're fucking boring. There's nothing behind that Tiger Beat face and boyish charm. She was hoping you'd be someone interesting, and you were hoping she'd be someone interesting. And while you were at odds, and had external tension and everything" –he waved his cigarette hand vaguely in the air— "it felt like something. And then you finally got alone together, and there was no _there,_ there."

Blane glowered, silently, but couldn't deny it. He hated Steff in that moment. Hated him for his unerring but cynical insight into human nature, and his blunt lack of diplomacy, couched in the polished tones of a seasoned ambassador.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"Fuck you."

"Don't feel bad, Blane. I didn't get it back then either. Back then I convinced there was something in there, in you, my God, something exquisite. I told myself you were just guarded. Like I was guarded. Because of how our world works. Our rarified little world." Steff smiled briefly. "That you didn't trust me. I didn't blame you for that, because who would trust me? I told myself I just had to keep hanging around you, keep you hanging around, and some day you'd let me close and show it to me. The real you." He shrugged, negligently. "And if you showed me that, I could show you the real me."

Blane stared. "The real you? And what would that be? A halfway decent person? Or an even bigger asshole?"

"You have that self-righteous look on your face again, like you're straddling a pineapple. The impotent-but-angry young man. All your Catcher in the Rye bullshit. I used to find it endearing." Steff shot him a cool smile. "There's plenty going on in my head, pal. I have my flaws, I admit, but blandness isn't one of them. Neither is inauthenticity."

"Oh sure, yeah, you're real original. You, and your linen suits, and your sports car—"

"You think my clothes and my car signify what's up here?" Steff tapped his temple lightly. "That says more about you than it does about me, friend."

Blane leaned forward in the chair, accusatory. "You wanted Andie as much as I did. If she was so boring and so unremarkable, why would that be, Steff?"

Steff shook his head slowly. "McDonough, your lack of imagination and limited powers of discernment fail you even here, where you simply can't conceive of another possibility, even when it's so adjacent as to be obvious, requiring only the slightest adjustment of perspective."

"Yeah, and what the fuck does that mean?"

"It means I was jealous of her," Steff said, enunciating each word with particular intent. He shrugged again. "Not you."

"Of her."

"That's what I said." Steff raised his glass to his lips. His expression and manner were mild, as they habitually were.

"I don't get you, you know that?"

"Oh, I know that. I'm well aware."

Blane shoved his face into his hands. "Why did you have to be so goddamn shitty about it? To undermine my shot at happiness. Jesus Christ, and I called you my best friend."

"You got your shot at happiness, Blane. Regardless of anything I may or may not have said or done, and it cratered in any case. Face it: she wasn't worth it, after all."

"You know what? Screw you, McKee. Just because you can't appreciate…creative, free-thinking individualism, just because you don't see the point or worth of girls who aren't icy blonde society clones like Benny—"

Steff laughed, then; sharply and abruptly, like he hadn't intended to, but couldn't believe how funny that was. "You think there aren't real girls—women—out there, who are truly outré, Blane? I've met plenty. Artists, gallery owners, performers, tastemakers. The real avant-garde. People who do things, create things. Catalysts; firebrands. All of them with more individuality and intrigue than your little trash-princess in her grandma get-ups."

Blane stared, but Steff didn't seem to notice, or care. Instead, he held forth, like he'd been waiting for the chance.

"I don't hold it against her, mind you—most people are nowhere near as remarkable as they think they are, or as unique as they'd like to believe." He frowned faintly. "But at the time, she had you. Which was eating me alive, and I admit, I wasn't so kind."

"That's an understatement."

Steff shrugged. "Fine. I was awful. I thought you were settling for less than you were worth, but turns out I was wrong. You deserved each other. You're both oatmeal, McDonough. She's oatmeal with cinnamon, at most. And you weren't the one slumming. I was."

"Listen to yourself. You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"Not at all." Steff mashed out the cigarette and left it for dead. "You're both dull as butter knives."

"Dull? Are you blind? Have you seen her? She's got more personality in one outfit than you've got in your whole wardrobe." Blane found himself defensive, in spite of their split. Andie's quirkiness was a carefully cultivated point of pride.

Steff sighed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, right. When your clothes are shorthand for your individuality, and your music taste stands in for opinions and convictions, and your consumption and accumulation of fetishized objects is somehow more noble than other people's, because it's inherently edgy. And your status symbols are just different shit, all leading to the same desire: some kind of credibility you never earned."

"You're saying—"

"I'm saying: personality is not a stupid hat, Blane. It's not pig-shaped buttons on a cardigan, or wearing too many socks. No matter how you dress, you either have it or you don't. And she doesn't."

"Oh, so now you're an expert on psychology."

"I am something of an expert on psychology, actually. Armchair, amateur, sure. A dilettante who dabbles, but I know human nature. Every manipulative person does. It surprises me that you, of all people, doubt this about me."

Blane fixed him with a peevish stare. "I don't doubt anything when it comes to you."

"I had a point I was getting to, Blane, all right? Look, it's that guy at the boardwalk who wants you to know he's special, because he has parrots on the basket of his bike. It's the girl with a boa constrictor and Boy George braids, who thinks it passes for a personality. And if you think that's any different than high society posturing, you're fooling yourself. Compulsively conformist in their nonconformity. Like your little orphan Andie, there. But it never gets beyond the externals. Not really. Don't forget: she still had no interest in that weird little friend of hers. Wouldn't give him the time of day. She wanted the rich, popular guy with the pretty blue eyes and the winning smile. Just like all the rest of them." He paused. "Including me."

Blane raised his voice, almost shouting. "You had me, you asshole. I was your best friend."

"I didn't have you. Not the way I wanted you."

Silence elapsed. Blane eyed him guardedly, as Steff crossed the room to drop into a Corbusier chair. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Steff sighed. "It's not that complicated, McDonough." He took a sip, squinting; worried it for a moment before swallowing. "If you really want to know, there was a time when I felt a great deal of warmth toward you. More than you'd think."

"Warmth," repeated Blane. "Yeah, sure. Before Andie came along, you were a pretty great friend, you know? Always had my back. Always wanted what was best for me. For years, Steff. We were friends for years. And then one day I meet the girl of my dreams, and you can't handle it."

"You're right. I couldn't handle it." Steff's agreement was equable, as if they were discussing a wholly uncontroversial subject. "That ought to tell you something."

"What it told me, is that you're a fucking asshole who never actually gave a shit about me. An entitled bastard who would play nice as long as he got what he wanted. The best friend I ever had, until I stepped out of line."

Steff pointed at nothing in particular. "Now there, you'd be wrong. You were doing well, McDonough, but you took it in the wrong direction when the time came to draw a conclusion. Don't feel bad; happens all the time in science." He shrugged. "But, as in science, after you eliminate all the wrong answers, whatever you're left with must be the right answer, no matter how improbable."

"You want me to believe you went off the rails because you cared about me so much, is that it?" Blane gave an incredulous laugh, disbelieving. "You bullied Andie mercilessly. All because you were jealous of the time she spent with me?"

"Tell him what he's won." Steff uttered the words lightly, non-contesting, swirling his scotch.

"If that's true," Blane said, struggling to process, pushing a hand back over his brow and through his tousled brown hair. "If that's true, then it was all goddamn unnecessary. Jesus Christ, it wouldn't have changed anything, Steff. So what if Andie was my girlfriend? I've had girlfriends before. You'd still have been my best friend."

"What you fail to apprehend is that I'm not talking about being your best friend, friend." Steff's smile was faint; small and chilly, as if on some level he was amused at the absurdity of his own words. His sultry eyes were averted, deliberately and conspicuously so. "When I thought about you, I envisioned something more like blood brothers, with a different exchange of fluids. Strictly non-platonic. When you and I would hang out in my room, like we are now, I was thinking some very impure thoughts."

Blane watched him wide-eyed, with a growing sense of surreality, but Steff wasn't looking at him. He tilted his head, rhapsodic, and went on. "When we'd lounge on my bed and watch movies late at night, sometimes you'd fall asleep, and I'd watch you instead; just let the screen go to static. I'd lie here in the buzz and the darkness and study you, trying to figure out why, if I could have anyone, all I wanted was you."

Something was climbing in Blane's chest, invasive as ivy on a campus wall; creeping outward, twining itself in and among his ribs. He was very still, sprawled in the chair, afraid to draw Steff's attention, in case it made him snap to his senses and stop talking. He felt paralyzed at the revelation, so he just sat there like wallpaper, quiet and conflicted.

"I'd felt that way for years. Like you were already mine, and you just didn't know it yet. So many times when we were alone and you were close, I had to stop myself. I had all these impulses"—he waved his hand to punctuate the words— "I had every intention of acting on, one day. Then we were seniors, and I knew my time was running out. I had to get this off my chest, or miss my shot. Wouldn't you know it, I was working up to it, and then, bam. Andie happened. It didn't sit well. I acted out." He made a gesture as if to acknowledge the understatement of that. "And even at the end, when you came to me with that blistering prom night speech you rehearsed in front of the fucking mirror, you still didn't get it. She wasn't the object, friend. She was the obstacle."

"Why are you telling me this?" Blane's throat was suddenly dry, and the scotch in Steff's careless hand looked better than anything he'd ever seen.

"Because it doesn't matter now," said Steff, offhand, without philosophy. He took another sip.

"Pour me one of those."


	2. Chapter 2

"Where are my manners?" said Steff, agreeably enough, as he rose and went back to the bottle. He hunted down a second glass, poured a couple of neat fingers, and brought it back to Blane, who took it and put it to his lips immediately.

He swallowed more than he should have, knowing it was uncouth in the extreme; no way to treat a three-hundred-dollar bottle of Talisker. "I don't know what to say," he said, finally, almost to himself. "I don't even know what to say to that."

"You don't have to say anything." Steff put another cigarette between his lips, but didn't light it. "Like I said, it's moot at this juncture. I'm just clearing the air."

"And I don't know if I buy it." Blane found himself speaking up again, with cynical vigor, continuing his thoughts as if Steff hadn't even spoken. "Andie told me you what you said, about liking her for four years."

Steff's tone was dismissive. "I like a lot of things. You can't blame a man for casting a wide net. It's not like she's unattractive. Though that thing she wore to prom was fucking god-awful—come on, Blane, even you have to admit that—"

"Jesus Christ, Stef. She sewed it herself."

"It showed."

"Whatever. You'd have gone to bed with her anyway."

"Of course I would have. There's no better way to break up a relationship than stealing the girl and leaving her flat." He smiled tightly around the smoke.

"You make it sound like you've done that a lot." Even as he said it, Blane knew that Steff most likely had.

"Speaking of her, where is your little social mobility experiment tonight, anyway? Sewing another formal garbage bag?"

"I don't know. Probably with Philip Dale," said Blane, bloodlessly. At the mention of present Andie and her current hypothetical evening, his mood shifted from incredulous to morose. "AKA, that 'weird little friend of hers'. You know, the one you said she wouldn't give the time of day? Well, guess what. She changed her mind. And now she's giving him the time of night, too, and probably the time of his life."

Steff shot him a bemused glance. "That non-factor with the bolo ties? You mean he's not queer?"

"Like I'd know," said Blane. "Does it matter? It obviously doesn't stop you." Steff had bedded a bevy of Bennies, apart from the actual, eponymous Benny.

"I'm not queer, Blane." Steff's voice was idle, unperturbed.

"Oh yeah? What do you call it when you want to sleep with your best friend?"

"I call it Tuesday. I call it 'doing whatever I want'. Say, aren't you the guy who just spent our last semester trying to convince me that labels and social stratification are the root of all evil?"

Blane knew Steff was telling the truth; that he screwed whomever he pleased, whether they wore Laura Ashley or Ralph Lauren, and that it didn't matter at their altitude. He'd meant to needle McKee, to give him back some of what he gave Blane and everyone else, but the words fell flat because the rules were different for them, and they both knew it.

He'd never been able to beat McKee at his own vicious game, anyway. Steff was a natural. Blane cut his losses and dropped the topic. "Anyway, Duckie's obviously a fucking _factor_ now."

Steff sighed. "Blane? Listen to me when I say it this time, okay? Forget her."

Blane said nothing for several moments, glass in both hands, staring at his Sperrys. "And what about you?" he bit out, finally.

"What about me?" Steff feigned surprise. "I forgot her months ago, on Prom Night."

"That's not what I meant."

Steff smiled. "There's nothing to forget, friend. That was over before it ever started."

"Then why tell me about it?"

"Oh, I don't know. In the spirit of closure, disclosure. As an FYI, as a curio. As a footnote."

Blane laughed quietly. "Frankly, I'm surprised you'd stoop so low, McKee. I'm probably trash, too, by your definition. We're not old-money Mayflower people. I'm the fucking Crown Prince of McDonough Electric. That's nouveau-riche. Trash, by any other name."

"Don't call yourself that." Steff said it flatly, and for once there was no humor in his voice.

"It's true," said Blane, suddenly compelled to push the point, blue eyes following Steff as he turned away, wondering at the sudden absence of that constant, low-level, lightly mocking lilt. "It's posturing, like you said. Trying to be more than we are. Trying to be what we're not, or failing that, at least seen as what we're not. Rich. Classy. Or creative. Quirky. Edgy…"

"If you were trash, you'd know, McDonough. I'd tell you myself."

Blane actually believed him.

He watched McKee draw the vertical blinds, obscuring the view, though he left them open to the moonlight. They were a modern anomaly, unique to Steff's room. All the other windows in the house were dressed in traditional tie-back drapes, heavy and classic; brocade and toile. They'd been there since the gilded 1920s, when the house was built, and that heritage showed in their weight and luxury. Everything in McKee's house was the real deal; it was what all the rest of them aspired to.

"I'm sorry," Blane said after a moment, abruptly, contritely. "I'm sorry I said you were shit."

McKee didn't look at him. "It's all right," he said, almost too dismissive. "I've said worse."

"I was mad. I was out of line."

"You were fine. It's fine." Steff paused. "Is it really over? With her and you, I mean?"

"Yeah," said Blane. "She's with him now. Whether or not that lasts, I don't know. It doesn't matter. I don't see how you come back from that. I really don't. My God, I don't even see how we got there in the first place. I told myself it would all be fine. Truth is, you were such an asshole about it, and I just didn't want to believe you were right."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I was right."

It was a rare concession on McKee's part, and Blane was silent for a moment, nodding, giving it the deliberate acknowledgment it deserved. "Well," he said, finally. "Sorry I just barged in on you like this. I guess I needed to get a few things out." He hooked a vague thumb at Steff's door. "I'll get out of here. I can show myself out. I still remember the way."

"No hurry." Steff picked up the remote and gestured to the big screen. "You wanna watch this with me, for old times' sake? It's barely started."

Blane nodded slowly. "If you don't mind starting it over. You know I hate coming in late."

"Anything for you," said Steff, insouciantly.

"Great." The truth was, Blane always came in late, somehow. Maybe that was why he hated it. He was late to the prom, late to the realization that he was a craven, indecisive, fair-weather, brow-beaten piece of shit, late to the realization that Andie wasn't the one, late to the realization that maybe...

"Oh, there's some coke on the table," said Steff, as if remembering this. "Top-notch Peruvian flake. All high, no headache. Benny's dealer brought it over. It's not really my thing, and I know you don't usually indulge, but in the interests of being a good host…"

"Scotch is fine," said Blane, killing the glass. In his listless and unsettled state, the coke was honestly tempting. Something to jumpstart his mood, bend him back into the shape where he fit neatly into this evening again. Blot out the nuances and caveats of life and put everything back the way it was, if only for a night.

Steff nodded. "Figured. I'll say this, it's not my poison of choice, but it can be fun in the bedroom. Not so much for me, though I'll admit, one line makes me rock hard and ready to go." He pointed the remote and rewound the tape. "But man, what it does to Benny—makes her an animal. An absolute man-eater, in the best type of way. Just wild, insane. It's great."

"Benny." Blane felt an odd, unfamiliar twinge at this concrete reminder of Steff's ostensible girlfriend, who he'd somehow always thought of as an accessory, like Steff's watch or his shoes. He'd said her name earlier that night, almost without noticing her in it. _Hanson_ , he thought, reminding himself, inexplicably pleased at himself for remembering. Her last name was Hanson.

"Yeah, Benny." Steff raised his eyebrows as he absently watched the video rewind. "She's wild." The cigarette was still in his mouth, as yet unlit.

Again, Steff wasn't lying. Blane harbored a few hazy-but-vivid memories he kept tucked in the corners of his mind, like dirty Polaroids hidden under couch cushions, of inebriated postludes; the crashed-out aftermath of countless weekend parties at McKee's, where Steff and Benny inevitably left the fray and escaped up the stairs to the solitude of some opulent, over-furnished bedroom or another, and Blane tagged along. Once there, McKee and his girlfriend would proceed to get hammered and handsy with each other, which would often culminate in a full-blown sexual encounter. He tagged along on a couple of those, too.

Sometimes it was just the two of them—Steff murmuring dirty things as he screwed her, and Blane casually watching from a chair nearby, like it was a civilized-but-rugged sporting event; a crew meet or a polo match. But a handful of times, Steff had caught his eye from under that sheaf of forward-fallen crowning glory, grey gaze hazed with lust, and beckoned for him to join them. Benny would blow him while McKee screwed her, and Blane had to admit it ranked among the hotter things to befall him in his relatively short sex life.

He'd never thought about it too much—it seemed like the kind of thing that was a bad idea to examine too closely, or put too fine a point on, but now, watching Steff lounge around in his boxer shorts and barely done button-up, he was reminded of the view, and the parts he had watched the most intently, and maybe even saved for later, which might have had something to do with why he didn't let himself think too much about it.

Steff had good looks to spare; say what you might about him. There was no getting around it.

Beautiful and treacherous, like a lot of things with a predatory nature.

Blane kicked off his shoes, lying back on the bed. He sighed deeply and jiggled his empty glass at McKee, eyeing the dregs. "Does this theatre have free refills?"

"Of course," murmured McKee, shifting the cigarette with his tongue, mock incredulous that Blane would even ask. "Give me that."

He handed it over, closing his eyes, rubbing his brow as he did, almost dropping the glass. "God."

"You look like shit, friend," Steff said. "Listen, forget the whiskey, all right? I'll make you something else."

Blane eyed him balefully. "It had better be an actual drink, and not a fucking Tab or something."

"My, aren't we feeling feisty tonight. Of course it'll be a fucking drink; God knows I'm not allowed to touch my mother's diet soda. I'll be right back. Keep your panties on."

McKee left the room for a few—down the hall to the wet bar in his father's study, Blane assumed—and when he came back he had a tall drink in a crystal highball. "Gin buck," he said, as he handed it to Blane. "All the rage at the country club."

Blane stared at the glass for a moment, then took a sip. "Where'd you learn to mix drinks?"

"The old man taught me how to make all his favorites," said Steff, absently, checking the VCR. Blane knew the tape had finished rewinding; he had heard it click while staring at the ceiling. "Sip on that. You'll keep your buzz, but it'll slow you down."

Though on some distant level it irked him to be gatekept by McKee, Blane complied without a fight, allowing that maybe straight liquor was doing him no favors in his state.

Steff grabbed the remote and lay back next to him on the bed, pointing it at the machine and pressing play. Blane watched in his peripheral vision as he settled in, crossing his legs negligently at the ankle.

He still hadn't lit the cigarette.

It was a good flick, Blane had to admit; lurid neon noir, with a sly sense of humor and more than a little gratuitous nudity. They fell into watching, side by side in the darkness, bathing in blue light from the screen like they were at some alien beach.

It wasn't too long before the scene was playing again, the one he'd walked in on, with the woman dancing erotically to the ethereal synthesizer melody. It had a lulling, otherworldly quality that flooded Blane's inebriated senses and made them tingle. He could feel a pleasurable chill in the hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck.

He felt warm, and lightly melted; relaxed and content for the first time in a while. As the movie went on, and the intrigue increased, the song was reprised at key moments. Each time it came up in the score, he had the same feeling. Good. Weird. Euphoric.

"I like that song," intoned Blane, nursing his drink. "What's it called again?"

"Telescope." Steff shifted the cigarette to sip his whiskey.

"Yeah. I like how they always use that song for anything to do with her. The dance, or…"

"A leitmotif," agreed McKee, absently. "Like an opera."

"Yeah, I guess? Is that what they call it?"

"That is what they call it."

"She's gorgeous. Reminds me of Wonder Woman. What's her name."

"She's foxy, all right. Shouldn't have gotten that nose job, though. They botched it. She probably didn't even need it."

"How can you tell?"

"I'm pretty good at spotting after-market parts. I'm surprised you can't."

"But how can you tell they botched it?"

"Because normal people don't have vertical nostrils, Blane. She looks like a fucking skull."

"It does seem a little…yanked up, or something."

"Bobbed, they call it. It's not a good look." McKee swirled his Scotch. "It's the hallmark of a hack surgeon. If his other patients look like that, steer clear."

"I'll remember that," Blane said wryly.

"This is a good scene," said Steff, pointing at the screen with his glass.

The scene in question turned out to be sort of a music video, for all intents and purposes; a movie within a movie. In the film's plot, it was a shoot on a porn set made up to look like a sleazy punk rock leather bar, with the action scored to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's ubiquitous and risqué hit, "Relax", and starring the actual band as bit players. The scene followed the protagonist as he was led through the club by Frankie himself, past fancy ladies and writhing couples, down the stairs into debauchery, where the dance floor was prowled by New Wave weirdos in sunglasses and burly dudes with mohawks and assless chaps. It kept getting more over-the-top and suggestive as the song went on, ending in a tawdry sex scene that was a full-on fever dream, aggressively intercut with suggestive surges of water.

"Oh my God, that was crazy. What did I just watch?" Blane was laughing.

"Wild, right?" Steff was laughing too, in that sly, amused way of his. "Wait, I'll rewind. Let's watch it again." He reached over and picked up the remote.

They sat in silence for a couple of moments, and Blane found himself sobering, mind reverting to the previous topic, like a moth to a flame; confessional and impulsive, stupid and doomed.

"It was hard, with Andie," he said, abruptly, as Steff rewound the tape. Steff said nothing, just glanced at him on the oblique. "It was like she hated everything I came from, every experience that made me, just as much you hated everything about her. She rolled her eyes at everything I tried to share with her. It was all 'richie' shit to her, no matter what it was, or how I tried to express what it meant to me." He turned to look at McKee. "Whatever we are, it can't all be bad, can it?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask," said McKee, with an uncharacteristic amount of humility.

"But you're part of it," said Blane. "Part of why it didn't work." The tape hummed quietly under his voice, like an accompaniment. "After it all went down, after we got some distance from that night, I told her you're actually not such a bad guy. That she should give you another chance. If I just talked to you, maybe we could work it all out. That it would mean a lot to me, if she'd just try. That I didn't want to lose my best friend."

Steff didn't say anything for a moment, just huffed out a light, noncommittal 'huh'; part laugh and part remark. "How'd that go?" he said, finally.

"Not well," said Blane. "She's pretty much convinced you're beyond redemption."

"She's pretty much right," said Steff.

"Maybe so. But it made me wonder what she saw in me, anyway, if it was all such a bore, and a goddamn drag—my whole life and my interests."

"Well, it's a good question, isn't it?" Steff drawled, eyes on the static-banded screen, watching the action go backward. "Why would a Have-not girl who hates the Haves so well and truly be so invested in locking down the affections of such a WASPish young man?"

Blane shook his head. "I told myself it was because she liked me, the real me, somehow—but she didn't even know me. I mean, she couldn't possibly know me, right? We hardly even talked. And then, when I tried…it was like she didn't want to get to know me. And I don't…I just don't get it. What did she see in me? Why would she even be interested in the first place?"

Steff stopped the tape at the beginning of the scene, queueing it up. "Because she liked your looks," he said. "And because everyone wants to screw _up_ , McDonough. Whether they admit it or not. Whether they resent it or not."

Blane closed his eyes. "How did I ever expect it to work? What I was thinking?"

Steff shrugged. "Andie was your pet iguana, Blane. Your Cyndi Lauper hair. Andie was what you wanted to have on your arm, and in your bed, to tell the world you're interesting."

"You're right," Blane said. "I am boring."

"Or maybe," said Steff, as he pressed play, "you just don't know who the fuck you are."


	3. Chapter 3

He brought it up once more before the flick was over, near the end, when Steff paused the tape to go take a piss. Like the last gasp of something dying; like the final stage of grief.

While he was gone, Blane's mind was left to wander once more, to stare at the wavering still image of Melanie Griffith in leather pants, shot through with static, her short, bleached, punky hair and off-beat outfit reminding him of Andie. And his own failure.

"I should have been able to make it work," he said, as McKee came out of the ensuite. Vaguely, Blane registered that his hair looked even more lustrous and luxuriant than usual, like he'd run a brush through it.

"That golden-boy complex will eat you alive if you don't deal with it."

There was an irony in hearing those words from Steff, thought Blane in a half-formed way; that it was McKee, not him, who was actually and tangibly golden. "I didn't even try." He confessed it to the wall. "Not really. Not once I realized it would be hard. I could have at least made an effort."

"It's fucking high school, Blane. What, did you think you were gonna marry this chick? The record-store clerk? That she was gonna be the mother of your children or something? You're going to college in a couple of weeks. Tell me, where do you think she's going? I'll tell you: nowhere."

Blane was silent, and McKee resumed the movie. He'd paused it right after the climax of the action, on the downside of a cliffhanger, where the hero was hyperventilating, stuck in a literal grave while a hapless Melanie Griffith was menaced by the murderer.

"It would suck to be claustrophobic," said Blane.

"The only good thing about hangups is getting over them," said Steff, and maybe his habitually arid tone was even a little more pointed than usual, more specific and less universal, but Blane couldn't be sure.

That would be just like Steff, he thought, if it was.

The climactic scene ended on a fade-out, and the movie cut away to a new scene. A flapping bat; a campy horror set. "Back to this, huh. I still don't get this whole Billy Idol-Adam Ant vampire thing," said Blane, "but whatever."

"It's very New Wave," drawled Steff. "Somehow I thought you liked that."

Blane rolled his eyes along with the credits, as they started to play over the final scene. It was light-hearted and humorous, more so than the rest of the movie, though it retained the gratuitous nudity, and the voyeuristic theme. Bare, tanned breasts filled the screen, dead middle, inescapable; the actor's hands squeezing and caressing them everywhere. Blane was suddenly very aware of McKee's presence in the dark alongside him, viewing these images, watching and responding. 

"Those are nice," said Blane, when the silence had gone on too long. As if the close-ups and kneading hadn't been enough, now blood streamed down them, as the credits resumed rolling and the camera lingered lovingly.

"Fake as the blood," said Steff, unmoved, laconic. "But it's decent work." The film cut to black, and the rest of the credits. "Gotta love a happy ending."

"That's how you know it's fiction," muttered Blane. His gin buck was long done for, and he frowned when he realized it for the third time.

"You sound bitter, friend." Steff's voice carried a small, rare edge. "You really ought to let this go, for your own good."

"Guess I'm just an angry young man, like you said. All my _Catcher in the Rye_ bullshit, right Steff?"

"Impotent-but-angry, I said. That's an important distinction. You're an angsty young man, McDonough. Real anger takes commitment. It takes conviction, and you just don't have it. Listen, if you're so into nonfiction, maybe you should channel all that listless ennui into a slim, thinly-veiled memoir that future Blane clones can easily carry, cover-side out, and thumb through in coffee shops to impress endless future Andies."

"Yeah, maybe you're onto something there, McKee. Maybe I should start keeping a fucking journal," said Blane. "Seeing as I have shitty friends."

"Oh, right. Well, when you do write your memoirs, make sure it's in present tense. It makes the least profound of prose seem edgy and immediate."

"Oh, thanks for the tip."

"Use a lot of run-on sentences, too. That way people speed through and don't read too close."

"Yeah? Since when do you read, anyway?"

Steff shot him a baleful glance. "Since always, Blane."

He hit the button to stop the tape, and then hit rewind. The machine obeyed. It sent up a quiet white hiss as it worked.

With the movie over, the original invitation was technically complete. Blane looked down at his hands for a moment, wondering if he was supposed to leave now. Something in him hoped he wasn't. The wide, empty, manicured streets of their upscale neighborhood would be devoid of life at ten PM. They would lead him back to his parents' bland and beautiful house, where he'd be left with nothing but his own thoughts. There was something comforting about the louche, cozy darkness of Steff's vast, excessive bedroom by night.

McKee seemed to be in no rush to get rid of him, at least. Eventually Blane turned to him, about to speak.

"What now?" said Steff. "Another flick?"

Relieved, Blane glanced at the hot blue digital numbers of Steff's sleek bedside phone clock. "It's ten. Night Flight should be on."

Steff shrugged his assent and aimed the remote. They watched Night Flight, causally and mindlessly, the way one did. As usual, they played some good shit, and some weird shit, and some shit that was both. They switched back and forth between that and MTV for a while. At some point the Pheromones' video for "Yuppie Drone" came on and Blaine wasn't impervious to the irony.

"You know what sucks?" he muttered. "I'll never be able to go to that fucking record store again."

"Sure you will," drawled Steff, staring at the screen. "Who gives a fuck?"

"You think I'm gonna show my face there, after she left me for a guy called Duckie? He'll probably be there all the time now. Not like he wasn't before—"

"Enough about your shitty breakup, all right? I'm over it, even if you're not."

"Oh, right. Forgive me for thinking my best friend might give a tenth of a shit about my mangled feelings."

Steff stared. "I've been licking my wounds too, you know."

Blane found himself wordless. McKee's gaze had gone from indolent to piercing in an instant, a sharp, stark confession betraying some inner wound.

"Outrage is an opiate, friend," remarked Steff, turning away, lapsing back into languor. "Don't pick up a habit."

They fell into silence for a long time. Blane was consumed by his thoughts, and a creeping, gnawing guilt over the growing realization that maybe McKee hadn't been exaggerating his declaration of prior affection. And here he'd been making Steff the sounding board to his agony over Andie, his symphony of misery and self-pity. It was at the least tone-deaf and oblivious, if not outright sadistic.

"Are your parents out of town?" asked Blane after a while.

Steff murmured a languid assent. "Roger and Martine are in New York for a long weekend. Very long."

"Cool." He wasn't sure why he bothered to ask; the answer was usually yes.

Steff's mother was young, European; some sort of exotic import. Blane had never ascertained what kind, but she was beautiful and sultry like Catherine Deneuve, and Steff favored her best attributes, with a some genetic party favors from his father mixed in for masculine good measure.

She was effusive and negligent. She lavished borderline-inappropriate adoration on him when he was in her sight and mind, and gave no thought to him when he wasn't. His father was older, approving, indulgent, and distant—preoccupied with wealth and work and humoring his trophy wife in his spare time.

Steff had to make appearances, give a command performance now and then, but was mostly left to his own devices, which were considerable, given his resources—as were his vices.

 _Steffen_ , they'd named him—not Steven, or even Stephen, with a soft ph—like they hadn't wanted anyone to miss the point. It was the traditional Anglo-Saxon upper class pronunciation, and the European as well. But it suited him, Blane thought. He was every bit a Steffen, and even more a Steff.

They'd ended up on some late-night cable horror flick, come in halfway through; some low-budget turkey groaner about kids with black nails who fried people with radioactive hugs. Then it was over, it was midnight, and a recorded voice announced the conclusion of the broadcast day. They played the national anthem over creepy stock footage of jet planes and waving grain. When it went to dead air, Blane turned to McKee, bored with the idea of more Night Flight and music videos, to suggest another movie.

Steff had dozed off, to his surprise; eyes closed, smooth face lit by the flickering screen, hair spilled back against the pillows, his chest slowly rising and falling beneath the night-muted white of his low-buttoned shirt. Struck by the picture he made, Blane gazed at him, taking it all in. The full, satin lips he so often saw moued in contempt lay slack; softly held, scarcely parted. Steff looked almost saint-like in slumber, though Blane knew nothing could be further from the truth.

But seen like this, Steff was disarmed, was very nearly art. Blane felt himself leaning in before he could really think better of it. He closed his eyes and touched his lips to McKee's, finding them warm and supple. What began as a hesitant brush evolved into a lingering press.

When he pulled back, Steff was staring at him in the soft darkness, grey eyes enigmatic as the static on the screen. "You should save that Prince Charming shit for Cinderella."

Feeling strangely bold, Blane touched the hair that swept over Steff's fair brow, easing it aside with his fingers. "She left me for the pumpkin."

"Well, that sounds like a real drag, friend." Steff shifted slightly, like meant to sit up.

Blane chased his grey gaze; caught it and pinned it with his own. "Not really."

"Oh, there it is. The patented winsome McDonough smile: works on trash and treasure alike."

"Which are you?"

"I'm neither, so you can reel in your teen idol act."

"This is what I look like when I smile, McKee. I can't help it."

"I know what you fucking look like. Believe me." He moved again, like he was trying to extricate himself, and Blane was mystified by the way McKee kept avoiding his eyes.

"What's with you, anyway?" Blane smiled wider, lips parting.

"I could ask you the same. What's with the aggressive act? It's very off-brand."

"Likewise, pal." Blane found himself quietly fascinated by Steff's reticence. McKee had always touched him with insolent, affectionate impunity, like Blane's whole body was a natural extension of all his other possessions. He didn't shy from nearness. Not like this.

Blane remembered Steff's casual, close-range adjustment of his bow tie at the Prom—right before he'd batted Steff's hand away, told him off and gone to Andie—the intimacy of the act, and his proximity. Something resonated in his chest and loins at the memory.

On impulse, he reached out and adjusted Steff's collar, slowly, lingering over the deed.

He saw Steff's lips part, as he slowly raised his gaze to Blane's, cool and collected once more. "What's this, then?"

"Just returning a favor from Prom Night, buddy."

"Ah. Prom Night." McKee eyed him for a long moment, and Blane found himself getting warm. "You know, going off with her, Blane, well, I have to tell you, that was a big mistake. I had something planned for you and me."

"Did you." He spoke the words, rapt, quietly disbelieving.

"I had a hotel room lined up and everything. Maybe even some fucking champagne, but don't quote me on that. I ended up using it on Benny, which was always Plan B, but that's not the point. She was the consolation prize." He paused. "You should've stayed stag, friend. I was going to make it up to you, the whole mess, the whole Andie _thing._ Make it all better. And I was going to start like this."

Steff took hold of his face in both hands, gazing down at Blane's mouth for a few breathless seconds before closing his eyes and closing the distance.

It was like touching a live wire. Blane responded without thought, lips moving against McKee's in a tense and decadent smash. His hands slid down from Steff's collar, clutching, seeking a place to anchor. He felt Steff's tongue penetrate his mouth obscenely, spreading it, full lips easing over his own in a lush, languorous caress. His world spun up and hit the ceiling; metaphorical plaster rained down.

The rush was immediate, and intense. Like a bump of coke—the good stuff, the stuff Steff had on hand: real Peruvian flake. He'd only tried it once or twice, but the memory of that rush stuck with you. This was better.

Blane reeled; he grasped, he clenched. He pressed in, ravenous. When McKee pulled back, he pushed for more, fingers seizing the sides of Steff's open shirt.

"No," Steff said, calmly, abruptly. His hand stayed Blane at the chest, held him at bay with the tips of his fingers. "Unlike Benny, I am not a consolation prize."

"Are you crazy?" Blane stared, bemused, still dazed from the collision, and the chemistry. He leaned in, with a sudden urgency. "That's not what this is."

"Good God, like you even know." Steff sighed, rolling over to reach for his glass, finding it empty.

Blane grabbed him by the shoulder. Steff glanced back, almost languidly. "That's not what this is," Blane said, again, more carefully.

"You made your choice. You made it very clear."

"I didn't know I was making a choice, McKee." Blane shook his head. "I didn't know I had a choice. I didn't know there _was_ a choice."

"I told you, you know," said Steff, pushing his hair out of his eyes with a sharp flick of his wrist. His face wore what Blane thought of as his signature look, haughty and detached, features drawn like Roman shades. "Told you right there in the study."

"No, you didn't. You said 'you won't have a friend'. That's not the same goddamn thing." Blane was flushed and euphoric and agitated, his breath eluding him. Maddeningly just out of reach. Like McKee.

"You never were good at reading between the lines."

"You never were good at being human."

Steff barked out a laugh, abrupt and incredulous. "This, from you. The guy who doesn't know whether he's coming or going. What he likes, what he wants. Nothing. Nada."

Blane felt something else start to rise, alongside his ire; a hard bloom in his chest, heat in his cheeks. "Maybe I'm starting to get an idea."

"Well good for you, really. This is the most spirited I've ever seen you, I'll give you that much."

"Maybe I want more." Blane felt his mouth go dry again, as he forced the words past the sudden lump in his throat. "Maybe I want you."

Steff stared at him. Then he laughed. "Get sober, Blane."

"I'm not drunk. I'm hardly even buzzed."

"You were a fucking mess earlier."

"I was emotional." Blane felt his lips twist. "I'd explain what that's like, but…"

"Ha ha."

"I get it, McKee. You're a rock. You're an island. You don't give a shit about anything, or anyone. So fine. Fuck me like Benny, then. Use me. Show me how little you care."

"I do care," said Steff, after a moment, with a too-placid expression. "And that's the problem."

He rose all at once and went to his low modernist bureau, where he picked up a soft pack of Marlboros, tapped it, and extracted a fresh cigarette with his teeth. At some point the one he'd been humoring between his lips had disappeared. It hadn't been smoked, at least not that Blane recalled.

Blane was stuck by the impulse to follow him, but it made no sense given his ultimate intent, which, he was slowly realizing, was to get McKee back to the bed.

As he shifted, Blane felt something in his pocket, and remembered what it was. He was struck by another notion, and got up, walking across the room to Steff's stereo. It was hi-fi, cutting-edge, sleek, and enormous. It even had a compact disc player, but he bypassed that in favor of the tape deck. He opened the hatch and slid in a cassette, b-side, then pressed play. It was a Maxell blank, with the song titles painstakingly handwritten inside, crammed into the small place provided by the generic interior card. The case insert was carefully decorated with colored marker, in artsy, hand-drawn block letters.

He'd either remembered to rewind, or he'd listened to he a-side last, because it started right at the beginning. After a few seconds came the dreamy opening synth chords of Book of Love's "Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)". 

"And what the fuck is this?" asked Steff idly, crossing back to the bed, sitting at the end of it.

"Songs to make out to," Blane said, irreverently. "Andie made it."

"Oh." Steff paused. Then he laughed. "That's a little dark for you, isn't it, McDonough?"

"Maybe neither of us really know me yet."

"Oh, I know you, Blane. Nobody knows you like me."

"We'll see." Blane stood before Steff and the bed, meeting his eyes deliberately. He shouldered out of his Oxford jacket, letting it fall on the floor. His fingers found his shirt, and started to undo the button just below his collarbone, one-handed. _Slowly_ , he told himself. His throat felt taut, even though the words were unspoken. _As slow as you can. Much slower than your heartbeat_. _Slower than the music. Like you mean it, because you do._ "I know I'm always late."

Late to class, late to the prom, late to every average epiphany, late to the realization that Andie wasn't the one, late to the realization that maybe someone always was.

"But I get there, okay? I'm there now." He undid another button, keeping his eyes on McKee's. "I'm here now."

Steff's lips parted; the unlit cigarette clung to the bottom one.

Blane reached out and took it, throwing it aside. It disappeared somewhere in the shadowy periphery. He didn't watch it go. His eyes were fixed on Steff's.

McKee seized him by the front of his shirt, looked him over and dragged him down.


	4. Chapter 4

Steff's bed had always felt enormous to Blane, even though it was the same size as his own. He didn't know what it was, exactly, that made it such a vast, luxurious expanse. Maybe it was the minimalist black silk bedding, maybe it was the fact that it wasn't his, maybe it was the fact that it _was_ McKee's. Steff had always felt that way to him, as a person; larger-than-life and wholly without apology, unrestrained and undefined by the boundaries of reality or circumstance.

Maybe it was the just way it was situated; marooned like an island in the suite that surrounded it, which was bigger than the average master bedroom in a normal middle-class home—though Blane's own was no smaller.

Maybe it was that Blane's bedroom was an opulent tower, a minimum-security prison, whereas Steff's bedroom was a refuge, a middle finger, a den of iniquity, a treehouse, a sanctuary. An escape—from his parents, his future elevated trash-heap legacy atop a construction company; from the weight of his own constant guilt and their smothering expectations.

He'd been on this bed for hours now. Nothing much had changed except for everything. They no longer lounged side by side, untouching. Now they lay entwined, almost entranced; Steff's hands in his hair, and his in Steff's, Steff's tongue in his mouth, and his in Steff's, and the bed felt bigger than ever.

Now it seemed to surround them, engulfing each slow shift of their bodies, its soft topography comprising the strange new shape of Blane's current universe, with Steff as its blazing center, the sun it all revolved around.

Blane felt drunk now; truly drunk for the first time that night. McKee had opened Blane's shirt, and his own, and the intermittent press of their warm, bared skin felt better than anything he could remember. From time to time Steff mindlessly grazed the flat of his palm slowly over his nipple, giving him chills.

He felt his pulse react as McKee moved over his body, wordlessly pushing himself up on his hands and looking down at him. "Now what?" he murmured.

Blane's lips parted. "I don't know." It wasn't true. He knew what would happen if Steff was Andie, or any of the other girls he'd been with. Where things would go next, where he'd go next. It wouldn't even be a question, just a natural progression. But he couldn't quite bring himself to say it.

"I do." Steff's hand found his fly and deftly unzipped his pants, making a move to shift down the bed.

"Steff—"

"Did Andie do this for you, friend? She seemed like a bit of a prude, but maybe she made an exception for true love and a trust fund." McKee eased Blane's pants down his thighs as he spoke, along with his boxers. Exposing him, like it was nothing. His motions were casually mesmerizing, almost beautiful, as he ran a hand up the inside of Blane's leg and urged it aside. Blane saw his own cock, taut and jutting, flushed and wanting. McKee studied it for a moment, stroking it slowly from tip to shaft and back again. "Well, look at that. You're a handful, aren't you. I had no idea." He bent his head and kissed Blane's inner thigh, a trifle insolently.

"Steff." The sight of that familiar ash-blond head bowed low over his loins was almost too much for Blane to process. He reached out and grasped it, plunging his hand into the masses of hair. "At the same time." Blane's throat clicked, but he found words and forced them out. "All right?"

Steff first looked surprised, then indecently pleased. "I don't know who you are," he drawled, "but I like the way you think."

Blane acted instead of answering, shifting, turning; reaching for Steff's hips, dragging himself level with them. McKee was visibly stiff beneath his boxer shorts, the expensive French-striped cotton gently tented by his erection. Blane touched it through the fabric, first, tracing its contours, rubbing over the length with parted fingers, pinning its shape against Steff's thigh. A beat later, on impulse, he leaned in and dragged his mouth over it, imbuing the fine material with heat and breath and sensation.

"You're a slut, Blane," Steff said, fondly.

"Yeah? And what are you?"

"Just lucky, I guess."

"Shut up and suck it, McKee."

Steff laughed, and an odd, warm thrill shot through him at the sound. In the next moment, something else shot through him, a bolt of sharp and sudden pleasure, as McKee did exactly what he asked.

 _Let it happen. Don't think about what he's doing. Even if he's doing it better than anyone ever has. Jesus Christ. This is happening. How has this never happened before?_

Blane jerked Steff's boxers down and reached for what was revealed, grasping hot, hard flesh in his palm. Steff's cock felt like his own, but the musk around it was different; heady and undeniably McKee. Blane found himself savoring those foreign pheromones, steeping in the warmth and masculine aroma that lingered there, caught in Steff's downy beige netherhair.

Steff pulled back for a moment, gazing through his forelock, dragging the flat of his tongue languidly over the head of Blane's cock, making him shudder. "Well, McDonough?"

"You're better than Benny," Blane heard himself say.

His best friend's dick was hard in his hand. The sheer surreality of that consumed him for a moment. It was smooth along its rigid length, flaring broadly in the middle before tapering to an elegant tip. The vein on the underside was prominent and sculpted, a lifelike detail on a Roman statue. Blane could almost see it pulsing. It was hard to believe he'd moved Steff's cold blood so far south.

Blane closed his eyes and put it to his lips; let it slip past them, filling his mouth. The head was soft and succulent against his tongue, the shaft unyielding, like warm iron. He heard Steff's breath hitch, and it was like a hit of some hitherto unknown drug.

The line blurred quickly between giving and receiving, with McKee mirroring him in counterpoint, the experience intensified by slight variations in technique and approach. They fed off each other's actions, spurring each other on; Blane was subsumed, lost to the moment as he swallowed and surged, forcing McKee's cock as far down his throat as he could, feeling Steff's hands grip his ass as he pulled his loins close to do the same.

Blane knew what girls liked; a finger or two gently sucked and slicked and slipped inside, keeping a rhythm while his mouth did the rest. Andie had been no different. When Steff did the same to him, it was a total surprise. "Jesus, McKee," he bit out, shuddering.

"What?" Steff said negligently.

"That thing you just did."

"Oh, right. Did you want me to stop?"

"No." Blane closed his eyes. "But you should, unless you want me to blow my load right down your throat."

Steff seemed to think about it. "Maybe not yet," he said, eventually, withdrawing.

Blane rolled onto his back, overcome for a moment, arm flung over his eyes. His mouth felt flushed and hyper-sensitive, along with the rest of him. The bright, fuzzy hiss of the static on the screen felt like an aural manifestation of his physical state. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, the echo muffled by black silk. Below, his thwarted cock throbbed.

"I have to say you surprised me there, McDonough, with that little _soixante-neuf_ maneuver." McKee's voice was idle, indolent. "It's almost like you've done that before."

"Jake Halvorson and I blew each other once, like that. At the same time. We were bored and stoned. And I've traded a few hand jobs, but that's nothing. So has everyone. You know how it is. I mean, that's all, though. I've never really been with another guy. Not like this. But so what? There's always a first time."

Why draw the line there, thought Blane. Now he wondered why he had. There was a taboo attached, of course, but it wasn't like that had ever stopped them from trying anything else. In their world, there were few barriers. Even if you tried to keep sacred cows, there was nothing to fence them in.

"What are you saying, Blane?"

He felt Steff ease between his legs, covering his body, and when he opened his eyes, there he was, gazing down, shaggy sand-blond hair hanging forward, framing that sultry patrician face.

He could smell the exotic, enigmatic fragrance of whatever Steff used to blow-dry his unruly mane of thick, smooth hair into careless, side-swept perfection. He could smell Steff, himself, just beneath it, and he didn't have a word for that. He only knew what it did to him.

"Do you want me?" Steff asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" The words came out halting, disbelieving, husked and on the verge of a whisper. Blane was all too aware of his stiff, aching dick, and who it was currently aching for. He laughed; McKee did not.

"Maybe. But I've been waiting to hear you say it." Steff's voice was low and louche. "So maybe throw me a bone, here, McDonough."

The full hedonism of the moment hit him all at once; Steff's lithe and sinuous frame pressing him into black satin, the sensual flickering of the snowy screen beside them in the blue darkness, the cocooning stillness of the grand, empty house around them, the taste of three-hundred-dollar Scotch on their tongues. His senses reeling, Blane decided he might as well be truthful. "I need you." He grasped Steff's lush, tawny head in both hands, looking him dead in the eyes. "I need you, okay."

McKee's fingers traced his throat and jaw. "I was wrong about you, friend. There's a real person in there. You should let him out more often."

"Why don't you come in and find him?" Blane had reached a point of no return, where nothing was off-limits anymore, and nothing was too much. Some distant, former part of him was shocked at the words, watching them go, but the rest of him only wanted to help Steff stoke the bonfire that would burn him down. He'd poke through the ashes, afterward, and see what, if anything, was left.

When he dared to look up, Steff was staring at him. "You're filthy," he murmured, with a note of admiration.

"So do it," Blane said, breathing out, closing his eyes. "Screw me like you screw Benny. From behind, or—I don't know, I don't care how—just fucking do it. I want you to do it. I want you. You hear me? I want you."

"Jesus Christ, Blane."

"What's the big deal? You've done it before, right?" Blane already knew the answer was yes, but some perverse part of him wanted to hear it from Steff's own jaded mouth.

"I mean, I don't make a habit of it." Steff's murmur was lilting; evasive, insinuating. "Not with guys, anyway. But like I said, Blane: anything for you."

"Does that mean you've never done it with a guy?" Blane found that hard to believe.

"No," Steff said, coolly. "It means I don't make a habit of it." He gazed down at Blane with hesitant, predatory solemnity. "But I could make a habit of you."

"I get it now," said Blane, staring up at him with a faint, wry smile. "I get why they all say yes." Except Andie. Andie had turned Steff down flat. For him. It seemed pretty funny now.

"You're wrong, friend. I don't say that kind of shit to just anyone." Steff looked away right after he said it.

Blane didn't. "So how do you want to do this?"

Steff pushed off from the bed, still avoiding his eyes. "From behind. Not because it's kinky or whatever, though, all right? Your first time, it's just easier that way."

"Whatever you say, pal." Blane shoved off his pants, and shouldered out of his open shirt, unhesitating. "Still feels a little kinky, though."

It actually felt more than just a little depraved to be naked in McKee's bedroom, kneeling on his bed in the electric twilight, waiting for him. He hadn't gone far—just to the bedside drawer of his minimalist nightstand, opening it one-handed while losing his own shirt, and shucking the boxers. Like every guy their age, Steff kept the Johnson's baby oil handy. As Blane watched, he squirted some into his palm and stroked himself, up and down the shaft, palm deftly rounding the knob a couple of times before going back to the base. It made the taut skin glisten.

McKee turned back to him, now nude, still stroking, putting a knee on the bed. "I'm ready if you are," he said, almost too blithely. "Try to relax, all right?"

"Yeah." Blane eyed Steff's lightly tanned body for a beat, then turned and eased forward onto his palms. The act of getting on his hands and knees for McKee felt even more depraved than the naked waiting, but he had to admit he didn't hate it. He clutched his fingers into the black silk bedspread, briefly, aware of his vulnerability, especially in front of a guy like Steff. But Blane was starting to realize something he had always known: Steff was better to his lovers than his friends.

He didn't have long to contemplate it before he felt McKee's palm on his lower back, and he suddenly thought about Steff's hands, how he'd always noticed them; the easy and unthinking way they gave themselves to gestures, the graceful way they tapered at the tips. It aroused him, to think of those hands on his body, all their expressiveness and intention focused on him alone.

A moment later he felt those same tapered fingers trace down his spine, then lower, through the curve of his ass, finding him where he lived. Steff's fingers were slick against the sensitive skin, grazing him there, gently pressing inside. Blane breathed in silently at the touch, at the unthinkable intimacy, and the one committing it.

The next touch was different, glancing; blunter, broader than the mere brush of mindful fingers. Steff was poised to penetrate him, just like he'd done to Benny in front of Blane so many times—on the same bed, in the same hedonist way. Blane's head spun at the thought, which seemed incredibly dirty, impossibly debauched. He reached back to grab Steff's smooth thigh, feeling the muscles flex as McKee leaned in. The arrowed head breached his body almost too easily, and Blane heard himself gasp, felt his body react, immediate and involuntary,

Steff pressed on. "Easy, friend," He murmured, his voice a soothing drone, almost absent, like he was concentrating on holding it together. "You're all right."

McKee's cock sank into him slowly, inexorably, as his body gave way, parting around its steady incursion, yielding to slickness and physical insistence. There was an intensity to the sensation, unlike anything Blane had ever felt before. His mouth fell open. "Oh, God. Oh, wow." Arms taut, he bowed his head, breathing in and out. "Fuck."

It was something. Really something, Blane thought, but that something wasn't really pain. The ache he felt was more about absence than presence; a hollowness wanting to be filled, needing Steff inside him more than anything else. He pushed back hard against McKee, taking him the hilt, clenching his teeth against the breathtaking way its broadness stretched him.

" _Christ._ A little warning, McDonough?" muttered Steff, grasping his hips, fingers digging in. "Look, I know you've got something to prove here, but if you do shit like that, I could just lose it right here, all right? Game over. And it wouldn't be my fault, either."

Blane closed his eyes. "I don't have anything to prove, Steff. I just want you. That's all."

"Stop that."

"It's true."

"Fine, but stop it." He felt something from Steff that seemed almost like a shudder.

"How about 'fuck me'? Can I say that, McKee? Fuck me, Steff," He laughed, breathlessly. "Make me your bitch."

"That's not what this is," said Steff. "That was never what I wanted."

"Mellow out, McKee. It was a joke." He reached back to touch Steff's thigh again, and let his hand linger, stroking it. "Come on."

McKee pulled out by way of reply, and Blane swore, then swore again at the sudden way he slid back in. Planting a hand on his lower back, Steff leaned in and screwed him slow and hard, setting a rhythm, settling deep each time, bottoming out, loin to sacrum, with a little close-quarters grind at the end of each thrust for extra emphasis.

Blane was groaning, swearing—shaking, Christ, almost yelling—before he even realized it. It was good, indeed, that Steff's folks were out of town, and he found himself absurdly grateful for their general parental negligence.

"Aren't you chatty," said Steff, arid, on the underside of his breath. He sounded aroused and amused at the same time.

"We should have done this years ago." Blane bit his lip. "Christ. Fuck. Harder. You can do it harder. Faster."

"Aye, aye," drawled Steff ironically. But he did it. He pushed Blane's chest down on the bed, grasped his hips in both hands and snapped into a ruthless cadence. The slap of striking flesh resounded. Blane pushed back against him with equal brutality; mindless, overcome, drunk on the sensual violence of the act, reveling in the passionate collision of their aggressions.

After a few minutes of that, he felt Steff subside. He leaned in to place a lazy, open-mouthed kiss between Blane's shoulder blades and went back to the deep, leisurely thrusts, and Blane nearly lost it.

"Put your hands on the headboard, all right?" McKee showed him as he said it, guiding him upright so they were chest to back, Steff's arm wrapped around him. Blane let his head fall back over McKee's shoulder, gave himself over to everything.

"Tell me something, Blane. What do you think Bill and Joyce would be more upset by?" Steff murmured against his ear. "Andie, or me?"

Blane shuddered. "Either would probably get me disowned."

"Oh, no, no, no, I don't agree. They'd tolerate this, so long as you married all right and kept it out of the society pages. After all, I have the right name, even if I have the wrong parts."

"They feel right to me."

"You're a slut, Blane."

Blane twisted, grabbing Steff by the back of the neck, staring into his bedroom eyes, feeling his own gaze burn, hot-blue and feverish. He felt McKee slip out of him, leaving an aching void. "Get on your back."

"Whatever you say, McDonough."

McKee pulled him down, and they kissed roughly, clumsily, as he fumbled for Steff's cock and slid it back in. He gasped as it hit home and his instincts took over; he rocked forward at once, riding McKee viciously, barely losing stride. Steff's hands rested on his hips, riding his motions, escaping now and then to slide over his stomach and chest. McKee's face was no longer shadowed by his hair, which had fallen back, haloing his head on the pillow; his breathless expression both guarded and vulnerable.

There was something almost reverent there that fascinated Blane, even through the haze of his mindless arousal and the heavy aura of lust that surrounded them.

Impulsively, Blane leaned forward to kiss his mouth. The motion made Steff's cock shift inside him; it bullseyed some deep, bittersweet place, catching him by surprise.

He let out a loud, raw groan, and knew he was coming. He felt Steff's hands tighten on his body, felt Steff's loins go taut beneath him. Felt the rise of his hips as he thrust up, joining Blane's motions, doubling their impact.

Steff didn't make a sound. He stared, eyes piercing in the quarter-light, looking almost like he was concentrating, the faintest flicker tightening the space between his brows.

"Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck." Blane convulsed and cursed, crude words called forth by climax, like ejaculation; jerked out and uttered hard, losing meaning as they became a pleading mantra. He went rigid for a beat, as everything inside him clenched and released, and he succumbed to it, paralyzed by waves of too-sharp pleasure that struck him mercilessly.

He shot off all over Steff in hard, roping bursts, painting his stomach, spattering the smooth planes of his lightly tanned chest with white, liquid heat at high velocity. McKee moan-laughed as a late bolt hit the underside of his chin.

Dazed, Blane stared in mild horror. "Shit, did I—"

"Relax, friend." Steff held his gaze, grey-eyed, looking unusually louche, even for him. He reached up and rubbed Blane's come over his skin, luxuriantly; over his neck and chest, and up to his lips. "Kiss me," McKee said, low voiced and low-lidded, lifting his chin as if it was a casual request.

Blane did it. No hesitation.

Steff groaned into his mouth and he felt a little lightheaded.

"I'm sorry, God. Sorry. I just—I couldn't stop it. Did you finish?" Blane managed, as their lips broke apart. He hastily grabbed for his discarded button-up, intending to wipe his mess off Steff. "Did you…?"

"Oh yes," said Steff. His hand stroked the side of Blane's head, fingering the tousled waves above his ear, as he whispered near it. "Right inside you."

Blane felt a shudder run through him, an aftershock. "Jesus Christ, McKee." It made sense, given where Steff had been in the moment, but hearing him say it was something else.

He could feel Steff's cock pulse inside him, intermittently, as it softened, like it had a life of its own. McKee lay back, eyes half-lidded, with a faint, lofty smile on his face. He seemed supremely unconcerned; shameless, almost decadent.

Blane eased off him carefully and fell back on the bed beside him. For a long time he just breathed, letting himself steep in the brutal sweetness of the postlude. A low, pleasurable throb radiated through his loins. He felt fragile; wrecked, drained by the force of his orgasm. All his past ecstasies seemed shallow and colorless in hindsight, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

He wasn't sure how he should feel about a lot of things, but for once, he knew how he did.

The television blizzard flickered blue, the warm buzz washing over their bodies. The sound was white and soothing, signifying life; an inhabited oasis in the mansion's empty silence. He turned his head to glance at Steff, eventually. "What now?"

Steff turned his head, lips parted, looking him over for a moment. "You want to stay?"

"Over?"

Steff paused. "Yes," he said, in a leading tone.

"Yeah." Blane rubbed his chest slowly. "What about the rest?"

"Can I assume we've made up?" Steff's eyes sought the ceiling. "We're friends again?"

Blane smiled slowly. "Can you imagine what an asshole I'd be if I said no right now? I'd be like you."

McKee huffed out a soft laugh, but he didn't sound too amused.

"Of course we're friends." Blane sobered, staring. "I thought that much went without saying."

"Good. You're my sanity. And I've missed you."

Blane was taken aback, and didn't try to hide it. He gazed at McKee, blue eyes searching his handsome profile. For all that he'd always taken Steff's insolent nature as an anchor and his constant company as a refuge, it had never once occurred to him that Steff might see him in a similar way.

"Hey McKee," he said. "Why are you all the way over there?" Steff glanced at him. Surprise was one of his most attractive expressions, thought Blane; that light, mild shift in his classical features. He felt something stir in his chest. "Come here."

Steff obliged, rolling over to lie alongside Blane's body, gazing down at him. A moment later his hand found Blane's face, stroking his jawline. "Better?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Blane. He grasped the back of Steff's golden head and pulled him down, kissing him deliberately. The moment clung, suspended like spider silk, until it gently gave way, and Blane was left breathless. "It is now, anyway."

Steff studied him. "It's chilly in here, don't you think? Let's get under the covers, all right?"

Blane obliged, even though he hadn't been shivering from the cold. Without clothes, the ambient temperature of the room did feel a little low, though, he had to admit. It was a big house, and the heat had doubtless turned down for the night. That, and most of his blood was still lazily making its way back from his loins, like drunk people finding their way home after a party.

"You have a fireplace in your room, right?" Steff said.

"Yeah," said Blane. The decorator had built a whole theme around it.

"That's what I need. A fireplace."

It was strange, being in Steff's bed, instead of just on it, but much like Andie, it was a strangeness he found intoxicating. The sheets were silk, which was unsurprising, but still nice; a cool counterpoint to the equally foreign sensation of Steff's warm, smooth skin against him, Steff's fingers carding through his hair.

"Are you thinking about her?" McKee spoke quietly, after a few moments.

"Yeah, a little. But not the way you think."

"What do you think she's doing?" Steff said, as if he didn't quite believe him.

"Something good, I hope," said Blane, idly. He'd never held any ill will toward them, either of them. Not really. He'd never really held any against McKee, either, in spite of his many crimes. He just wasn't built to hold a grudge. "But she's probably sleeping." He thought of Andie's bedroom, the Victorian trim painted out in aged, shabby off-white, festooned in lace and florals and pinks. It was a fond memory, but it felt oddly distant now.

"How do you figure?"

"I'm sure she and Dale are taking it slow. He has that whole…chivalry, pedestal thing going on." Blane smiled vaguely in the darkness.

"You didn't."

"I'm not really a prince. I just look like one. But you know that."

"I wonder what she'd say about this." Steff traced his fingers over Blane's bare shoulder absently. Maybe a little possessively. Maybe a lot possessively. Blane had to admit he'd always kind of liked that part of McKee's dynamic toward him, responded to it, without ever once realizing why. He was late to a lot of things.

Blane thought back to Andie, and all the conversations they'd had about his friends in general, and Steff in particular.

" _You always chose that asshole over me. Always. The whole time, Blane. Don't you dare deny it. Don't you_ dare _deny it. You stood me up for prom. You stood me up! Just because you showed up at the last minute with some weak, stupid line about not believing in yourself, that was supposed to make it all okay? Make it better that the only thing you really cared about was fucking Steff McKee, and what he thought about you? I don't know what that guy has over you, but it must be some good shit. Everything else is just an afterthought to you. Including me."_

Blane had the grace to be a little chagrined. "She'd probably say, 'I told you so'. We talked about you a lot, actually," he admitted, with an uncomfortable laugh. "Probably much more than she would have preferred."

"Really." Steff sounded like he wasn't sure whether to be pleased or suspicious.

Blane gazed at the ceiling, basking in the aftermath, lulled and gratified by the mindful, deliberate way Steff touched him. There was a solidity to it, a gravity, an intensity to Steff's desire and regard that grounded him in time and place.

"Andie thought you kept me around to control me. Like it was all a big ego kick for you." He paused. "I always knew it was more than that, but I never could quite explain it to her, either."

"Yeah, well, guess what. Your girlfriend doesn't get me. Big surprise, right?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"—I mean, _at all_." Steff made a quick, agitated motion with his hand.

"She's Duckie Dale's girlfriend, Steff."

"'The reason I keep you around.' I mean what a thing to even say. Look: I don't want to control you, Blane. I just wanted to keep you. To myself. I mean, can you understand that?"

"Yeah," said Blane, after a moment, nodding. Given tonight, he actually could. "But why?"

"You're decent. Everybody needs some decency. Even me."

"Decent." Blane turned to stare at him. "I'm _decent_."

"No, no," Steff said, annoyed. "Not the way you heard it. Decent, Blane, all right?" He paused. "You're good."

"Good?" Blane laughed. "Wow. I don't think I'm that good, Steff. Good-natured, sure. Good-looking, maybe. But when it comes down to it, I'm just not that great of a guy. I'm boring. You said it yourself. Noncommittal. Andie said that one…"

"You're good for me." McKee said it solemnly, grasping his head and gazing into his eyes with a concrete sort of finality. "Most things I like aren't." He paused. "Most things I have aren't."

Blane stared. "Come on, Steff. You're not as bad as Andie—or you—like to think."

Steff's gaze dove away from his. "Think about it, Blane, because I do. I've thought about it a lot lately, since you've been gone. What's good for me? My parents? Benny? My friends? My habits? What's good about any of it? Who is there for me, but you?" His grey eyes sought Blane's face in the barred moonlight, "And who is there for you, but me?"

"So, we're a thing now?"

Steff blinked. "Are you asking me if I'm your _boyfriend_ , McDonough?"

Blane hesitated. "It doesn't really sound like the right word, does it." McKee averted his eyes almost before Blane had finished speaking, like the conversation bored him stiff. He was staring elsewhere, through the plaster and into the wallpaper of the next room. Maybe the next house.

Blane ran a hand through the front of his hair, knowing that while he could definitely give McKee a run for his money in self-loathing, he didn't have the chops to best Steff at indifference or dismissiveness. He could only be sincere; earnest and artless beside Steff's guile and evasion. He could only be himself. "But yes."

"I'm what I've always been, Blane. Yours." Steff paused. "That was never the question."

"Then what was the question?"

"Whether you'd ever figure it out."

"Better late than never." Blane turned himself toward McKee, admiring him at close range like he'd never seen him before, his fingers grazing up and down his side with a new impunity.

Steff reached over his body for the remote, and clicked the television off.


End file.
